"Do you hunt?"

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600127875,00.html

Hunters' friend instills hope on mountaintops
By Ray Grass
Deseret Morning News

It was the last question Brett Remmington expected, but there it was, out in the open and waiting for an answer.

Mark Robison, of Riverton, poses in his family room with several souvenirs of the deer that he and his wife have harvested.

He'd stopped by the Sandy tire store to buy tires. When the big man in the company shirt suddenly turned and asked, "Do you hunt?" he wasn't prepared. Tire sizes he knew. The answer to this question should have been obvious to anyone. He was in a wheelchair.
"Does it look like I can?" he shot back.
Not long after that, Remmington tagged an elk.
Mark Robison is a hunter. Always has been, always will be. So, it was not unusual for him to talk hunting with customers when they come into his tire/service store in Sandy ?- Hillside Tires and Service.
Nor did he feel uncomfortable asking the young man in the wheelchair nearby if he hunted. Taken back a little by the response, he asked, which was for him the next obvious question, "Would you like to go hunting? If you would, I'll take you."
That was five years ago and since that meeting Robison has not only taken Remmington on several hunts, but somewhere in the area of 45 other people with physical limitations on hunts for everything from pheasants to deer and elk to exotic sheep.
These are hunts he finds "incredibly rewarding." For many of those he takes hunting, they've been "a life-changing experience."

Whit Fausett was born with spina bifida. Family members hunted, but he was limited to camping. Hunting, he felt, was something he'd never be able to do.
He met Robison at a sportsmen's show two years ago.
"He showed me pictures of people who were in wheelchairs who had gone on hunts. I thought it was great. He asked if I wanted to go on a hunt and gave me his name and phone number and said when I was ready to call," he remembered.
Robison took Fausett on an antelope hunt near Delta.

"I never thought it possible. It helped me to realize I don't have to sit in a wheelchair, but that I can get out to do just about anything anyone else can," said Fausett.
"It helped me to change my attitude. And, while I love hunting, just being able to get out and know I can do it is what I enjoy most. On one elk hunt, it was snowing and cold, and I got drenched. But it was great, just getting out; just being on a hunt."
Fausett, 19, just completed his first semester at the University of Utah in pre-med. He earned a 3.5 GPA and has aspirations of being a pediatrician . . . "And I know I can."

That one hunt with Remmington five years ago told Robison he was on to something.
"It was, for me, the most rewarding experience of my life. I love hunting, and to be able to share this with people who believe they could never go hunting is a feeling I can't explain," he said.
With help from his wife, Tina, and close friend Mike Olsen, he started MTM Hunting (Mark, Tina, Mike), a non-profit organization to offer hunting opportunities to the physically challenged.
This year, he's planned at least 50 hunts. More, if opportunities present themselves, mainly in the area of funding.
Robison holds a fund-raiser every year. Last year he raised around $13,000, "and while that does go a long ways, it doesn't cover everything," he admitted.
Many of the additional expenses, which are sometime sizeable, often come directly from Robison's pocket.
He also found he needed help with the hunting and has a support group of friends and other hunters who have been willing to be involved in the hunts.
He also found he's had to be somewhat adaptive with his hunting trips.
In some cases, special equipment had to be provided. All of those he's taken hunting have been confined to a wheelchair.
All terrain vehicles have proven invaluable. Many of those unable to walk have been able to drive an ATV.
He has also trained a horse, he explained, "to lie down on the ground to let someone climb into the saddle and then stand up."
He also adapted a saddle with a high back to offer more support to the rider.
One particularly emotional hunt, he remembered, involved a man, Keith Larsen, who was injured and suffered paralysis from the neck down.
"He could move his hands and shoulders a little, but not enough to pull the trigger. He was very depressed at the time. We rigged up a way for him to pull the trigger and took him on an exotic sheep hunt. He had two young sons. He took his 11-year-old on the hunt and that day he got his sheep ?- 13 months to the day of his accident. Seeing the two of them together was more than we could take. We all started to cry. It was pretty emotional," recalled Robison.
"After the hunt he become more involved in church and started speaking to groups about his accident and the difficulties he faced. He told me that the hunt turned his whole life around. He started back to college and was doing great. A few weeks ago he developed a blood clot and died."

Jason Peel was told by a friend to contact Robison. "He wants to meet you," he was told.
Peel was a hunter before his accident in 2000, when he fell off a ladder and lost the use of his legs. He'd tried to go elk hunting with his dad, but limited experience confined them to the cab of a truck.
"Within a week after I talked to Mark, he'd scheduled a pheasant hunt. I couldn't make it, but I did start going to group meetings with other people in wheelchairs. It turned out to be a great support group. We get together and we talk and you can see all the possibilities," he explained.
Later, he went to the Green River where he caught his first fish on a fly rod, then off to Texas where he tagged a whitetail deer.
"I've got kids," he said, "and I can't do a lot of things. I can't show them how to run or play baseball or soccer. I can watch, but there's not much else I can do. But, I can take them hunting.
"I hunted with my father, and I loved it. We weren't always successful, but it was fun. It's nice to know I can still do that with my sons."
Peel, 26, has started his own company ?- All Seasons Professional Bobcat Work ?- offering and operating a Bobcat for excavation and construction work.

Last year, Robison made a promise to those he took hunting that he would go before the Utah Wildlife Board and ask for special concessions for physically challenged hunters.
He did appear before the board, after months of laying groundwork, and got those concessions.
As for the future, Robison has no plans of slowing down.
"It means too much to me and to other people. And it's not all about hunting. I was sitting on a mountaintop with a hunter on a four-wheeler and it was snowing, the temperature was about five degrees and we hadn't seen a thing all day," he remembered.
"I looked over and there were tears in his eyes. I told him not to worry, we'd find the sheep. He looked at me and said that wasn't it. 'Here I am, sitting on top of a mounting, hunting. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I'd be able to do this ever again.' That's what it's all about."
And he's certain there are a lot more people out there who would like to go hunting, but are of the opinion that their physical limitations are stopping them. Robison is out to prove them wrong.
Anyone interested in volunteering, making donations or finding out more about MTM Hunting can look on its Web site at
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